The present invention relates to a photosensitive member, especially to a photosensitive member comprising a hydrogen-containing carbon layer with Si, Ge and/or Sn.
Recently, amorphous silicon (referred to as a-Si hereinafter) formed by a plasma chemical vapor deposition (referred to as plasma CVD) has been applied to produce a photosensitive member, especially an electrophotosensitive member.
A-Si photosensitive members have several excellent properties. But the relative dielectric constant (.epsilon.) of a-Si is so larger (about 12) that it essentially needs a thickness of at least 25 .mu.m to gain a sufficient surface potential for a photosensitive member. In addition, in the production of an a-Si photosensitive member by plasma CVD a long production time is needed because of a slow deposition rate of an a-Si layer. The long deposition time makes it difficult to obtain a homogeneous a-Si layer as the result of which image defects such as white spot noises are liable to occur in a high percentage. Further, the cost becomes expensive.
Though many attempts to improve the above defects have been made, it is not preferable to make the layers thinner.
On the other hand, an a-Si photosensitive member has additionaldefects such as weak adhesive strength between a-Si layer and electroconductive substrate, and poor resistances to corona, external circumstances and chemicals.
It has been proposed to use an organic polymeric layer produced by plasma polymerization (referred to as OPP layer hereinafter) and is arranged as either an overcoat layer or an undercoat layer in order to solve the above problems. The former is proposed, for instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,525 and the latter is done in Japanese Patent KOKAI No. 63541/1985.
It is known that an OPP layer can be produced from various kinds of organic compound such as ethylene gas, benzenes, aromatic silanes and the like (e.g. Journal of Applied Polymer Science Vol. 17, 885-892 (1973), by A. T. Bell et al.). However, the OPP layer produced by these conventional methods is restrictively used as an insulator. Therefore, the layer is considered as an insulating layer having an electrical resistance of about 10.sup.16 .OMEGA..cm as an ordinary polyethylene layer or at least similar to such a layer.
Recently, there is proposed a layer comprising diamond-like carbon in the semiconductor field. But charge transportability thereof has not been suggested at all.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,525 discloses a photosensitive member consisting of a substrate, a sensitizing layer, an organic photoconductive electrical insulator and a glow discharging polymer layer having a thickness of 0.1-1 .mu.m in the above order. This polymer layer is provided to cover the surface so as to stand up to wet development as an overcoat. Carrier transportability of the layer is not suggested.
Japanese Patent KOKAI No. 63541/1980 discloses a photosensitive member comprising an undercoat layer composed of a diamond-like carbon and having a thickness of 200 .ANG.-2 .mu.m and an a-Si photoconductive layer formed on said udnercoat layer. This undercoat layer is formed to improve adhesion of the a-Si layer to the substrate. The undercoat layer may be so thin that a charge moves through it by tunnel effect.
As mentioned above, photosensitive members have been proposed which comprises an undercoat layer or an overcoat layer composed of an electrically insulating OPP layer, a diamond-like layer and the like, but the transport of the charge is basically attributed to the tunnel effect and the phenomena of dielectric breakdown.
The tunnel effect is caused due to the passage of electrons when the thickness of an insulating layer is thin (generally at an Angstrom unit).
Dielectric breakdown is a phenomenon in which existing small numbers of charge carriers are accelerated by an electric field to gain sufficient energy capable of ionizing atoms in the insulator, with the result that carrier ionization increases. This phenomena occurs at a high electric field (generally more than 100 V/.mu.m).
In the case of a photosensitive member having laminated layers of an insulating layer and a semiconducting layer, charges generated in the semiconducting layer move through the layer under an electric field, but they can not pass through the insulating layer under a low electrical field. If the insulating layer is thin, it is ignored as a surface potential or it does not adversely affect properties of photosensitivity because of negligible development influence. Further, even if the charges are accumulated on the insulating layer by repeated use to give a higher potential, the potential in the electric field does not increase above a constant level (e.g. 100 V/.mu.m) because of dielectric breakdown.
For example, when an insulating layer comprising insulating materials capable of causing dielectric breakdown at 100 V/.mu.m is formed at a thichness of 0.1 .mu.m, the increase of the residual potential based on the repetition is only 10 V.
According to the above reasons, it is understood that if a conventional insulating layer is used for a photosensitive member, the thickness of the layer has to be less than about 5 .mu.m, or else the residual potential based on the insulating layer increases to more than 500 V causing an overlap of the copied image to occur.
Further, Japanese patent KOKAI No. 145540/1979 discloses introduction of carbon as a chemically modifying material into a silicon and/or germanium photoconductive layer. The carbon content is 0.1 to 30 atomic percent. Such carbon content decreases sensitivity, even though it can improve dark resistance.
As aforementioned, a conventional organic polymer layer in a photosensitive member is used as an undercoat layer or an overcoat layer, which probably requires no carrier transporting ability, and is used from the viewpoint that the layer is an insulant. Therefore, only an extremely thin layer, such as at most 5 .mu.m, is proposed. The carriers generated in the photosensitive layer passes through the organic polymer layer by a tunnel effect. In the case that the tunnel effect cannot be expected the layer is only used so as to be so thin that the residual potential is negligible.
It has been found that the organic polymer layer, which has been considered inherently insulant, has a carrier transportability at some range of hydrogen content.